


Haywire Memory

by Zugzwang (thunderdone)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Mavin, Memory Loss, One Hour Challenge, VERY FUCKING SAD AT THE END
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 02:46:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3553193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunderdone/pseuds/Zugzwang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A note installment of the One Hour Chalenge with Taloned_Hawk, in which Gavin has a problem, where every week he forgets what has happened, and Michael is there to take care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haywire Memory

**Author's Note:**

> SERIOUSLY THOUGH SAD ENDING

Mental institutions are not always nice places to be: those who are supposed to help may become lazy, ignoring needs and letting some go with more pain than they would have in a household that neglected them and took control of them. This was not the case with Sunny Heights, a mental hospital in the Houston area, dedicated to their cause of making those cursed with mental afflictions as happy as they could be. 

There, people were separated into three separate groups: constant supervision, daily check-ins, and helped. Constant supervision were for those who would never be able to take care of themselves, those with Skitzophrenia, or Alzheimer's, or other diseases which needed constant aid. Daily check-ins were for those who could function on their own, more or less, but needed someone, still, to ensure their wellness. Those with chronic depression, bad cases of OCD, and other such things needed these. 

Michael Jones' study period at Sunny Heights was focused in on the last group of anomalies, who were more or less capable of handling themselves. Many of the people there were not permanent residents, but only there for a little while, to get psychological help and routines to bring to the "real world". There were very few people there who needed to stay there all the time, and yet Michael was assigned to one of the permanents, by the name of Gavin Free. 

The incident happened three years ago, on his birthday. He had just turned twenty, and had only just moved into the states. He had the day off of work, as it would soon follow that he would every single Monday while inside the Heights. On that faithful day, he had gone out with a few chums from work to celebrate, while on his way there, someone sped through a red light while on their phone, right into Gavin. They had severely damaged the memory section of his brain, but not so much as to bless him with a complete memory wipe. From that day forward, every week, on every Monday at 7:37 PM, he lost his memory. 

These weren't the first things Michael learned of him though. Michael walked into the main building for his prep on a Wednesday morning. No, this wasn't done from the goodness of his heart, it was for his final hours of community service he needed for the end of college, and for his records, to make him look like a decent person. By the end of the eight-month miracle, he would be a better person. 

"Hi, welcome! You must be Michael," the head doctor offered with a grin to him underneath a bushy, red beard. He stood from the chair he had been sitting in before, offering a hand with blood vessels running up and down his fingers, tangling together to the Junior. He wasn't too abnormally tall for a man, around a head taller than the kid in front of him. He looked a bit older than he was, maybe from the years of heartache from watching the blocking of brains from the damned diseases.

Michael pulls his beanie off his haywire curls, offering an exhausted smile. "Yeah, thanks. You're Jack, right?" He takes the hand extended to him and shakes firmly. "So, I'm here for some Gavin Free, right? I think that was what it said in the email. So what's his deal?" Jack launched into an explanation of his personality, how he was a "more or less good kid, but could be rude at times, and a bit incoherent". He liked video games and filming things when he could. Frequently, when some band did a charity thing for Sunny Heights, he went down with a few others and filmed it with some community cameras. He then broke the news of the memory. 

He was then escorted to his fellow's apartment, where he met the bubbly Brit. "Hello! Are you Michael, the new guy?" The sandy hair Michael was met with was nearly as everywhere as his own, flicking up to point at the ceiling. Gavin was constantly moving, eyes flitting around his face, fingers tapping on his legs or the door frame, moving out of the way, to make tea. Hell, his ears seemed to be a cat's, flicking around to swivel at the speaker, who was Jack for most of that day. 

The next day was Michael's day, where he went in alone, a Thursday. They hit it off pretty well, talking of video games and television mainly. Gavin showed Michael the journal he was required to keep, filled with the memories that formed over his week. When he handed it to Michael, the power that emirates from it was just too much. The knowledge that with a single turn of a pen, he could rewrite a life made him decline the offer to read it. "Nah thanks, I don't want to hear about any old memories. Let's go do something new."

They went hiking down Washington Path the day after, which nobody really understood, according to Gavin. "Apparently, there is no Washington path, because really, the path isn't marked. It's just a path. You could call it Not Spaceship, and it would be the same path!" He had grinned at the statement lopsidedly as they walked, hand brushing along the leaves and branches anywhere near him. 

"That's fuckin' stupid. Nobody would name a pathway Not Spaceship. That's just like saying I'm everything but what I am."

"It still works as a name, though. If I was calling it a spaceship, then it would be incorrect."

But along came Monday after a movie and a open air Farmer's Market, the day which they both dreaded. Each knew what had to happen, and when it would, but neither would ever be fully prepared for it. Michael's hours ended at ten o'clock at night that say, as he would have to hand Gavin back the memories that were dripped from his mind. Michael was forced to read through the little brown book he dreaded. What if he messed up. What if Gavin became an awful person because of his incompetence. These thoughts were only bits of blind panic, though, and of course, he did not. 

A few events stood out in Michael's mind the months he worked there, some good and some bad, but all registering a deep emotion from him. Each had a symbol that would choke his throat each time he saw it, and gave him the painful reminder of what he left behind in Sunny Heights: a tattoo, a black spork with two tongs missing in the middle, and a small leather bound book.

One Monday, he had gotten a tattoo. He had planned it for years; the place, the angle, the size, and he loved it with his whole being, even as the needle struck his skin. That night, after Gavin had forgotten him and then remembered with the guidance of the little brown book, he said,"You aren't Michael."

This, naturally, arose some confusion. "What, of course I am! Michael "Rage Quit" Jones, age twenty, lived in New Jersey for the first seventeen years of my life. Why?" He raked a hand through his air as he looked over the edge of the book to look for any difference. 

"My Michael didn't have that thing tattooed on his arm, according to this. He just had some things from Legend of Zelda and a skull one with gears and fire. Not that robot guy you have on your arm. You aren't my Michael." He was pushed away from Gavin with a glare. Eventually, he was able to convince him that he was the real Michael. 

One day, in the middle of the summer, they were both hot and exhausted. They went out to Dairy Queen and grabbed some ice cream, then driving to an open field where they laughed and ate together. Michael had accidentally snapped the spork which drove them both into fits of laughter of the sudden appearance of Batman. How that translated into "I love you, Micoo. I miss you, somewhere in there when I forget," would always puzzle him. And how it then translated into "I'm not just a damned disease."

The small brown book was his constant torturer, though. A week before he was scheduled to leave for an exchange trip to Italy, he was given a gift by Gavin, an exact copy of his memories. He regretted forgetting it on the plane ride home. He regretted never returning to the sandy haired chaotic Brit. He regretted forgetting the flyaway hair of the Brit, never to be seen until a dream.


End file.
